Austria’s Semmering Base Tunnel

Austria’s Semmering Base Tunnel

30Sep

Posted on

2016-09-30

by
Sinorock

The Semmering Base Tunnel is one of the most important large infrastructure projects in the heart of Europe. The twin-tube Semmering base tunnel will connect Gloggnitz with Mürzzuschlag, Styria, Austria. The tunnel will be part of the Baltic-Adriatic railway corridor.

The 27.3 km long twin-tube railway tunnel will connect important economic areas and ports between the Baltic Sea and the Adriatic Sea and reduce travel time between Vienna and Graz in Austria by 30 minutes.

The project entails the construction of 62km of running tunnels, plus 8km of access tunnels, as well as connecting tunnels and shafts.

The tunnel is being dug from multiple sites and workers have already penetrated more than 0.5km into the mountain at Gloggnitz, while work has started at Göstritz on the construction of a 1km-long tunnel to access a large construction site from where work will begin in 2019 on the railway tunnels. Work will start in 2017 on the running tunnels from two other locations – Fröschnitzgraben and Grautschenhof – using a mixture of techniques including boring and blasting. Construction of a new station tunnel portal at Mürzzuschlag will commence in 2019.

Self drilling hollow bar is used extensively for the stabilization of tunnel portals. The ability of self drilling hollow bar to accommodate a range of different ground conditions make it to be a popular choice for tunneling works.